After the coyote's den
by lovestowrite238
Summary: A fill in the blanks for season 3B's Riddled. What happened to Stiles between the coyote's den where he was found and the tests at the hospital? Angst, hurt/comfort, friendship, family


**After the Coyote's Den**

 _I don't know what's happening to me. Can anyone tell me what's happening to me?! Can anyone confirm to me, that what I saw, what I heard, what I experienced, was not true? Can anyone please convince me it's just my mind playing tricks with? Did I do this to myself? Did I sleepwalk? Did I dream this creep?_

 _IS THIS REAL?_

 _I'm going crazy. I'm losing it. I'm losing my soul._

 _I'm losing …_

One second I smell the demon's breath as he comes to close I can see his black tongue move between his strange, iron-like teeth. I can hear his hissing voice as he speaks to me, warning me, threatening me, killing me from the inside out. I'm so cold I feel I could die right there and then, my body frozen to the core, my mind slipping away into numbness every second that passes by.

The next, he's pulling so hard on the steel metal trap that holds my leg, I feel my body glide against my wall over the icy cold ground, hurting hard against the sharp surface below me. I actually sense how pebbles and rocks hurt my back, scraping the skin of my front and back as I am constantly being turned around.

And then I am screaming so loud, shouting against him when he pulls me up, holding me in his strong arms. Only, they're not his arms anymore, they're Melissa's. Her voice speaks to me firmly, calling out my name as she holds me tight. 'Stiles,' she keeps on saying, 'you're alright.'

I realize suddenly that the hands that forced my body to glide over the ground are not those of the demon, they're human hands, familiar ones. She was pulling at me, and she was not alone. Scott's dad is there, one arm in a sling, the other still holding onto my ankle. My undamaged ankle, my unharmed legs.

I feel as if I'm dying right there, my chest hurts so much I'm heaving to catch my breath. Melissa keeps on saying I'm okay, that I'm safe and I can't believe her. I won't believe her. It's impossible that it's over. I see him standing right behind her, his eyes covered in bandages, and yet I know he's gazing right at me. Through me. 'We'll meet again,' he mouths and then he's gone, vanishing in the shadows.

I'm lying against Melissa, her arms wrapped around me. I'm having trouble breathing, the whole world trembles before my very eyes. I don't understand any of this. I was in a dark room, with _him_. He taunted me. He spoke to me, I felt him grab me tight, heard him speak. That was not a dream, I was there, my foot was clasped in a trap, I was bleeding. I called Scott. I remember calling Scott.

I stare at Scott's dad who kneels down before me and forces me to look at him, while Melissa digs out her smartphone behind me and calls for an ambulance.

'N-No,' I mutter, 'no hospital. Home.'

'You're in bad shape, Stiles,' Melissa says gently, 'we need to check you out.'

'Stiles, you were sleepwalking,' Agent McCall says, his voice gentle, like a concerned father's, while his hand still rests on my ankle. 'You're back, Stiles, we got you out of the coyote's den now. You're going to be fine.'

'B – Basement,' I say. 'No den … basement.'

'It was a nightmare, Stiles,' he says, his eyes looking past me to his ex-wife's. 'Just stay with us, you're going to be okay.'

'He's severely hypothermic,' I hear Melissa say as her ex-husband takes out a thick coat from the back of his car and places it over my shoulders. 'He must have been there for hours. We need to get him warmed up immediately.'

'The ambulance will take too long,' McCall replies.

'We can meet hem halfway. We have to get him in the car.'

She speaks to me then, her voice forceful as it was before. 'Stiles, we need to get you moving. Can you stand?'

I nod quietly.

'Good.' She moves behind me and her ex moves before me. Between the two of them, they manage to pull me on my weak, bare feet. A shocking pain shoots through me as soon as I try to move my legs. I actually sink through my ankle, and as I look down, I see an open wound, blood pouring out of it, flesh cut open so badly I can actually see my own bone. I see torn muscle and nerves and gore just spurting out.

'No,' I hear myself scream as the pain becomes so bad I can't move. 'No, not again!'

I feel my consciousness slipping away right there and then. I hear Melissa call out my name and then my head just falls against her shoulder and I'm gone, hanging between the two of them like a ton of bricks. I'm gone. Gone. Gone. While she calls out my name, 'Stiles. Stiles. Stiles!'

I wake up for the second time lying on the backseat of McCall's car, my head resting on a blanket. Another blanket has been placed on top of me. My feet are killing me, stings of pain shooting through them so badly I feel every single nerve that is part of them.

I'm moving, driving. I see streetlights through the window. My hands are killing me too.

'Stiles.' Melissa immediately looks down on me and I realize my head is not resting on a blanket, but on her lap. She's warming me up, constantly rubbing my hands. 'You're going to be fine, we're taking you to a hospital. An ambulance is on the way to meet us.' She takes my hand in hers and squeezes my fingers. 'Just stay with us, okay? You gave is quite a scare back there.'

'They're here,' McCall says and he stops the vehicle, slipping out immediately to run over to the paramedics of the ambulance that is now standing on the middle of the abandoned road.

I stare at Melissa who is looking nervously outside the window, watching them removing a stretcher from the back of the ambulance. Then I hear laughter and turn my head immediately, sending prickles of pain through my head.

'Do you think you're safe now?' he hisses, his blackened teeth clattering against each other, his black tongue spurting venom. 'Do you think the world is fine again? Think again, Stiles. It's just the beginning. We have only just started to get to know each other.'

'No,' I say, terrified, 'no, no.' I'm staring at him, realizing I'll never be safe again. 'No, no, no!' I try to crawl up to get away from him, only to realize there's nowhere to go.

'Stiles!' Melissa slaps me in the face, startling me so badly I'm right back inside that car with her. I stare at her so shocked she actually is as terrified as I am.

I shut my eyes as tears roll down my face, so afraid of what I've become that I don't know what to do.

'What did you see?' she asks, her voice so afraid I open my eyes again.

Before I can reply, the car door is opened and two medics look in and then start to get me out. The next thing I know I'm on a gurney with several blankets over me, wrapped up so tight my body starts hurting again from being warmed up.

One of them pushes an IV in my veins and something starts dripping in it. I just stare at the colourless bag as they explain these fluids will help me to warm up quicker. Melissa crawls into the back of the ambulance and sits with me as they drive off like crazy, hurrying me the last ten minutes to the hospital.

My eyes droop again and I slide in and out of darkness.

 _'_ _Tell me what you can't lose, Stiles. Everyone has it and no one can lose it. Tell me what it is. You KNOW the answer.'_

As I look up, he's sitting in Melissa's seat, laughing in my face. 'Tell me why you're playing dumb. Tell me what it is.'

'I don't know,' I mumble.

'Liar.'

'I'm not a liar.'

'Liar. Coward. Weak, little human. You know what it is. Let me in and I'll show you what we can do together. Stop pretending.'

'I'm not pretending.'

'Everyone has it and no one can lose it.'

I shoot up on the gurney and scream, 'I don't know!'

The next thing I know, Melissa and the doctor sitting on my other side, are struggling to hold me down. I see blood on my arm, I feel an ache, a sharp sting of pain on that exact spot. I've pulled out my IV and the world turns black.

When I wake up, I'm in a large, white room, stacked with dozens of boxes and cabinets and all sorts of equipment that is there to save human lives. I'm right now the one who needs saving, or so they tell me. Oxygen helps me to breathe, I'm slowly being warmed up, they say.

I don't understand any of this. I'm fine, I really am. I start feeling better, actually. My head throbs less, my body stopped shaking a long time ago, my feet are warming up again. I haven't seen _him_ since they brought me in. There's hope.

The doctor shines a bright light in my eyes, examines my feet, toes and hands, orders some tests and checks my body temperature, blood pressure and heart several times. 'Warming up slowly, body temperature is finally rising, blood pressure is still alarmingly low, heart is beating too slowly.' Then he orders all sorts of medication and I watch them push more fluids into the already present fluid. I feel drowsy, as if I'm not really there.

The next moment my dad storms into the room and immediately rushes over to me, his warm, large hand grasping my pitiful, small, cold one.

'Stiles, oh god, I thought –' he stops, realizing I shouldn't hear about his sorrow at that moment. But it's enough to tell me how worried he must have been.

'I'm fine, dad,' I say with a small voice, 'I'm really okay. It's alright.'

'Alright? You nearly died!' he almost shouts, 'what the hell happened? We found your jeep at the hospital, you left it there with the lights on. How did you get in the coyote's den? Stiles, what happened to you? Do you remember?'

I see _him_ standing in the corner of the room, but they don't see him. Is he real or a figment of my imagination? I know I'm alert at this moment, drowsy but awake. He puts his finger against his mouth and then he makes a small ssssssh-sound and I realize he's threatening them. He's threatening my dad. If I tell him what really happened, what I saw, he'll kill him. I know he will.

'Stiles, can you remember anything?' dad asks again, his voice troubled. 'Please, tell me what you remember. Everyone's been looking for you. We thought –' He stops again and then tears fall from his eyes.

I shake my head. 'It's vague,' I mumble.

'He's going to be fine,' the doctor says to my dad. 'He's getting better. He was in luck, half an hour longer and he might have fallen into a coma. It was freezing out there. Tomorrow he'll be much better.'

'Can you stop this sleepwalking he's been doing?' dad asks concerned.

'I have some ideas,' the doctor replies, 'but let's discuss that tomorrow. Right now, Stiles needs to rest,' the doctor says. I stare at the man taking care of me, realizing I don't want to be alone. I can't be alone. He'll be there too. He'll come back for me. 'We'll bring him to a private room where he can be monitored while he sleeps.'

'No,' I say, trying to get up. 'I'm fine, really. I just want to go home.'

'Stiles, rest is what you need and we need to monitor your vital signs for the rest of the day,' the doctor says, trying to calm me down.

'No,' I nearly beg, 'I don't want to sleep. Just let me go home.'

The next thing I know a nurse is pushing a sedative into my IV. 'No dad,' I mutter, grabbing his hand. 'Don't let me sleep.'

'Just rest now,' he sooths me. 'It's going to be fine, Stiles. You are going to be fine.'

And then I sleep. A dark, deep, soothing, relaxing sleep where he can't reach me. I feel safe. I feel rested. For one long moment, I believe that it's all going to be okay.

But then they come in, my dad, Melissa and my doctor, serious expressions on their faces. And I just know that it's all gone to hell. I'm in hell. I'm losing my mind, just like my mom.

They tell me I need some tests done, that there might be a reason behind all this insanity. I don't know if I should be happy or sad. Happy that the demon is a figment of my imagination, sad that I might have the same type of dementia mom has.

I'm neither. I just go through the motions. I just exist. Whatever the verdict, neither is good.

'It's going to be alright, Stiles,' my dad says, his eyes so sad I feel like I'm dying already. 'You're going to be fine, we'll figure this out, we'll find a way. If it's – If you have the same as mom, we'll deal with it. You won't end up like her.'

I look into his eyes. 'No, I won't,' I confirm. 'I won't let it go that far.'

With that, he stares at me even more sadly and I know I have just broken his heart.

Melissa talks to me. Scott talks to me. The doctor talks. And then they shove me into that horrible machine with the sharp sounds and I can't stand it.

I shut my eyes tight, forcing my mind to get away from there. And when I open them up again, he's there, watching me again.

I'm losing my mind. It's not dementia.

I'm losing my mind.

I'm going crazy.

No, I'm NOT losing my mind.

It's a whole lot worse.

It's …

The End

It's really the end of it all.


End file.
